Zimmerman was charged after a public campaign to make an arrest in the shooting that galvanized the nation for weeks. Now the prosecutor and her team will have to prove Zimmerman intentionally went after Martin instead of shooting him in self-defense, to refute arguments that a Florida law empowered him to use deadly force.

ATLANTA — Minutes before he was put to death, Troy Davis asked his supporters to “continue to fight this fight” — but will they, and how?

The Georgia inmate’s case outraged hundreds of thousands of people around the world who found the evidence against him weak, and opponents of the death penalty hope their anger provokes a backlash against capital punishment. Some activists say a fitting legacy of the case would be laws that bar death sentences for those, like Davis, whose convictions are based on eyewitness testimony.

09/21/11 - 12:04am

ATLANTA — Yet another appeal denied, Troy Davis was left with little to do Tuesday but wait to be executed for a murder he insists he did not commit.

He lost his most realistic chance to avoid lethal injection on Tuesday, when Georgia’s pardons board rejected his appeal for clemency. As his scheduled 7 p.m. Wednesday execution neared, his backers resorted to far-fetched measures: urging prison workers to strike or call in sick, asking prosecutors to block the execution — even considering a desperate appeal for White House intervention.

ATLANTA (AP) — A federal appeals court panel on Friday struck down the requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul package that virtually all Americans must carry health insurance or face penalties.

The divided three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the so-called individual mandate, which is considered the centerpiece of the law, siding with 26 states that had sued to block the law. But the panel didn't go as far as a lower court that had invalidated the entire overhaul as unconstitutional.

ATLANTA -- As costs to house state inmates have soared in recent years, many conservatives are reconsidering a tough-on-crime era that has led to stiffer sentences, overcrowded prisons and bloated corrections budgets.

Ongoing budget deficits and steep drops in tax revenue in most states are forcing the issue, with law-and-order Republican governors and state legislators beginning to overhaul years of policies that were designed to lock up more criminals and put them away for longer periods of time.

ATLANTA -- University of Georgia athletic director Damon Evans repeatedly referred to his position at the school before his arrest on a drunken driving charge and asked the patrol officer if there was "anything you can do without arresting me," according to a police report released Friday.

ROATAN, Honduras -- Breathing underwater was a strange sensation. It was even stranger because I've never been scuba-certified. Stranger yet that my wife -- who is reluctant to even duck her head under water -- was happily swimming 15 feet underwater behind me as we plumbed the depths on this island off the coast of Honduras.